i got an email this morning from a girl looking for contributions for a zine on loosing things. here's what i sent her:
Back in the summer of 2001, my best friend and I rode bikes from Reno, NV to Portland, OR and then to Washington, DC. I had a Palm VII with a modem that I used to write up daily journal entries that I mailed out to friends, family and people we met along the way. After we left Chicago, I started getting behind in the emails. My dad was going to be in DC for a meeting and if we timed it right we'd be able to stay in his hotel. To keep on schedule we were riding more each day and I didn't have time to write. I'd do an outline of each day's events, planning to finish them up when we had some time in DC.
The last 180 miles of the trip we rode on the C&O tow path from Cumberland, MD into Georgetown. The path is follows the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal that was constructed in the first half of the 1800s. The barges were towed by mules who walked on the path. It was a beautiful change from highway shoulders. No cars, easy camping, lots of nice people and wonderful scenery.
The final day, less than 80 miles from DC, my Palm computer fell from my sadle bag where I'd kept it the entire trip. I didn't notice that it was missing for a few miles. We spent almost three hours riding back and forth looking for it. I was pretty bumbed out about the whole thing. Besides all the half-finished emails, I had addresses of people who'd let us stay with them that wanted to mail thank you notes to, statistics on stupid things like the number of loaves of bread we'd eaten and flat tires we'd fixed. I don't think it was the loosing that bothered me but where I'd lost it, that close to the end.
everyone's favorite manufacture of budget bike parts, graveltech is now on the web. i don't think i ever mentioned it here but they bought up me a bill spaceman's zines and hired us to continue putting out more mediocre writing and bad jokes. on the new site you'll find new issues of b.u.i. and the one speed revolution.
the spaceman and i wrapped up issue #4 of the one speed revolution and issue #1 of bui (bikeculture under the influence) on thursday night. friday we got 500 copies back from the printer. today i got pdf versions ready for the web. tomorrow we fly down to vegas for interbike.
i'm really happy with how it turned out. we put the two zines together, back-to-back in a double issue. i didn't get to do as much writing this year, i was mostly doing the layout and prepress stuff, got quite a few of my pictures in it though. i hope everyone will take a few minutes to check out osr #4 and bui #1. thanks.
bill spaceman and i spent a chunk of the day today working on this year's issue of one speed revolution. it's going to be a split-issue with our new zine bui (biking under the influence) which will have a more general audience than osr.
a side note: i updated the pdf on the website. i'd gotten some reports that the old one would crash acrobat on page 7. if you had this happen you might want to try this version out.
spaceman and i put issue #3 of the one speed revolution to bed tonight. we're at kinkos right now getting the printing done. you can view a pdf of it here.
it's been a long night, i'm glad to have it done but i've got a quiz in chemistry at 09:00. fuck